Bloodbot takes blood samples automatically

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I have a confession to make. I hate needles.

Not always mind you. But when I discovered that nurses have a hard time drawing blood from me, I wished there was an easier way to give blood during my annual physical. Well hope may be on its way, because a group of researchers in London created a robot back in 2001 that could replace nurses in the future having to draw blood from patients that need to be tested.

This is Bloodbot and he was recently featured in a gallery of surgical robots for Wired. He is the invention of the Mechatronics in Medicine Group over at Imperial College London, England and works by first scanning the inside of a patients elbow using a pressure sensor that glides over the skin to detect the location of a vein. Then switching to a syringe the robot detects pressure changes so when needle punctures the vein it knows when to stop.

Why haven’t we heard more about this robot? Unfortunately, Bloodbot only scored 78 percent accurate when he was tested. Hmmm. I think with odds like that, I’ll still take my chances with the nurses.